You thought Cher's life was wild? Georgia Holt blazed a tumultuous trail of Hollywood romance, hardship and glamour before her daughter first stepped into a spotlight.

Holt's life as a mother, singer and actress unfolds in Dear Mom, Love Cher, a Mother's Day special airing on Lifetime (Monday, 10 p.m. ET/PT).

Produced by Cher, the hour-long documentary explores the family's history in interviews with Holt, daughters Cher and Georganne and Cher's kids, Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue Allman.

"It's a good Mother's Day special, but it's not Hallmark," says Cher, 66. "It's a Stephen Colbert or South Park version, not your average Mother's Day story, but totally real."

The project began when Holt discovered tapes of the never-released album she recorded in 1980 with Elvis Presley's band. Determined to help Holt reach an unrealized goal, Cher had the tapes remastered, then filmed her mother singing and chatting.

The resulting 16-minute video "was a little present for her 86th birthday," says Cher, whose agent and friends envisioned a wider audience. Dear Mom grew into a revealing look back at an unorthodox clan.

Holt, born in rural Arkansas to a 13-year-old mother, first sang in Oklahoma saloons for change ("My pockets were so full of money, they almost pulled my pants off," she says in the special).

Strikingly beautiful, Holt sought fame in Hollywood as a singer and actress and barreled through six marriages. After wedding truck driver John Sarkisian, she seriously considered abortion. They divorced soon after Cher's birth. Struggling financially, Holt briefly placed Cher in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns urged her to give up the baby for adoption.

"I heard the abortion story when I was a teenager," Cher says. "The orphanage story has been a touchy one for my mom her whole life, and she didn't want to talk about it. I said, 'Mom, why didn't you just march in and take me?' She said, 'I didn't have the power. I didn't have any money or a job, and the church was so strong. I'd go see you every day and you'd be crying. You don't know what it was like.' It was harder for women then."

Cher initially flinched at the rattle of family skeletons in Dear Mom.

"I thought, this could be tricky," she says. "But what's anyone going to do to me now? So I come from a poor white trash background. It doesn't make any difference."

Cher marvels at her mother's playfulness, resilience, perseverance and talent. They share a perverse sense of humor.

"My mother swore like a sailor when I was growing up," Cher says. "Now I say (the f-bomb) and she says, 'Honey, where did you hear that word!' I say, 'From you, from the time I was 2.' "

Holt's pop/country album, Honky Tonk Woman, was recently restored and mixed by The Voice musical director Paul Mirkovich and is out this week, 30 years after she shoved the suitcase of tapes into her garage and 80 years after she first dreamed of divadom. The set's 10 songs from the original sessions include I'm Just Your Yesterday, a duet with Cher.

"My mom thinks it's nice for women to see that it's not over at any age," Cher says. "She got her dream after 80 years. Women should never think they have a sell-by date."